Review: Don’t Worry About The Haters, ‘Star Trek Beyond’ Is Fucking Delightful

After the announcement that J.J. Abrams had handed off directorial duties to Justin Lin, director of the Fast and Furious films of late, many fans and critics issued a deep, resigned sigh, stating that the new Trek series was deviating so far from its roots that this was just going to be a Fast and Furious film in space. Then, there was the inevitable onslaught of “they’re just trying to compete with Star Wars” from fans online.

There’s been a great deal of positivity, sure, but even now many fellow critics have sighed and grumbled their way through their reviews of Beyond as if misanthropy is all they’re capable of. Though I also spent a year quietly throwing shade at this movie, I can’t recall the last time I was so happy to be proven wrong. Director Justin Lin and writers Simon Pegg and Doug Jung have effectively defibrillated Star Trek.

In the same way that Fast Five was a bafflingly fun, wilfully joyful muscle-car heist tour-de-force (seriously — even the most hardened cynic tends to melt before its charms), Beyond is, above all else, fun to watch; it’s a proper Star Trek experience. And it feels profoundly good to say that.

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Boldly Going Where No Man Has Gone Before… Well, Not Really

There was a point, about three minutes into the last instalment in the rebooted Trek series, Into Darkness, where Spock (Zachary Quinto) is about to be engulfed by lava. He flippantly tells Kirk (Chris Pine), via his communicator, that he always has been, and always will be, his friend. It’s a line that, in the original series of shows and movies, took decades to work up to. It was a moment of payoff after years and years of adventures, trials, tribulations and friendship that proved to be one of the greatest moments in science fiction history. Into Darkness spent its grimdark tenure creepily cannibalising great moments and recognisable tropes like this from classic Trek, making it a muddy, loud, lazy mess. It didn’t ruin Star Trek by any means, but it still didn’t feel right.

Beyond thankfully does the opposite, dumping us several years into the five-year mission of the USS Enterprise, into the headspace of the crew from the original series. In one particularly lovely moment, Kirk confesses to his Captain’s Log that things have begun to feel “episodic” for him of late (a reference to Kirk and his crew now being neck-deep in the era of The Original Series when the show was, in fact, literally episodic).

In 2009, when J.J. Abrams did a mirror-universe reboot of Star Trek, he told a story about how this five-year mission would begin, which is why it works so well as an origin story; it sets the tone for the oncoming adventure. Trek has always been about characters, exploration, diplomacy; “the final frontier” isn’t just a glib phrase, it sums up why these people are out in space in the first place. Into Darkness held us back from that adventure, whereas Beyond thrusts us smack bang in the middle of some serious exploratory goodness.

The film also throws in a good chunk of character development, with a change of pace in its first act more akin to the classic films. We get healthy portions of real human moments between Uhura (Zoe Saldana), McCoy (Karl Urban), Sulu (John Cho), Scotty (Simon Pegg), and Chekov (the late Anton Yelchin in his final role). We also see the state of the Federation; Yorktown, a deep space outpost, serves as the base (of sorts) for Beyond, and is a shimmering example of sci-fi world-building (imagine Deep Space Nine, times a billion).

Through all this, Beyond manages to focus on what makes the old Trek films great — politics, intrigue and the effects of the vastness of space on those who dare to plough straight into it. It also manages to tell a story about what it means to be part of a team; part of a crew on a starship.

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A Universe Built On Great Characters

It’s in Yorktown that we also meet Sulu’s husband and child, which leads me to a noteworthy point: Sulu is fantastic in this film. John Cho is a terrific performer and his character gets so many hero moments. In many ways, this might be Sulu’s best story in Trek so far.

The other shining star of Beyond is Jaylah, an alien trapped on a terrifying planet where our crew end up. She’s an understated, deeply effective, no-bullshit addition to the cast, and is played by Sofia Boutella, who you might remember as the blade-legged villain from Kingsman.

Throughout Star Trek, there’ve been plenty of amazing women who’ve had strong motivations and terrific performances (Ro Laren, Kira Nerys, Dax, Janeway to name a few — Trek really does have a long lineage of putting women front and centre). It’s a real pleasure to see Jaylah striding tall through Beyond, slotting seamlessly into the crew as they try and outdo their diabolical new adversary.

And that’s the other great thing about the film: we get a whole new threat, not an old one mined for parts. Krall (Idris Elba), the alien madman who attempts to outmanoeuvre Kirk and his crew, is a genuinely intriguing villain. His motivations seem to be driven by an actual desire on his part to achieve something, albeit something terrible.

The series has always been great at at this. If you asked a Trek bad guy why they’re doing what they’re doing, you’d see a glint in their eye that hints at an ocean of backstory; a megalomaniacal backwash of motivation behind their mania, not a surly “because I’m evil and fuck you, that’s why”.

In fact, as bombastic and balls-to-the-wall Beyond is at times, none of the characters ever act… well, out of character. They all behave exactly as they should within the confines of the movie universe, which means that when things get ramped up to 11, the internal logic of the film doesn’t collapse like a house of cards.

There are moments where the comedic genius of Simon Pegg, and the comic timing of the wonderful cast elicit genuine laughs. There are some choices by director Justin Lin which are so ballsy and gleefully dumb that you can’t help but squeal like a kid seeing the Enterprise roar into warp for the first time. And best of all, there’s the promise of more Star Trek to come.

It’s official, everyone: the rumoured curse of Star Trek films (the one which claims that every odd-numbered Trek film will be garbage) is broken. Star Trek: Beyond is at worst, a thoroughly entertaining action film, and at best, the finest Star Trek film since First Contact.

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Star Trek Beyond is in cinemas now.

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Paul Verhoeven is host of Steam Punks on ABC3, and the weekly gaming podcast 28 Plays Later. He tweets from @PaulVerhoeven.